P.J. Blanchfield
J.M. Plumb
2009
<div>We compared theoretical habitat volumes, determined from traditional combinations of temperature and dissolved oxygen concentration (DO) boundaries, with in situ habitat use by acoustically tagged lake trout (<span class="named-content" data-type="species">Salvelinus namaycush</span>). The widely used criteria of 8–12 °C underestimated lake trout habitat use by 68%–80%. Instead, combined temperature (<12 or 15 °C) and DO (>4 or 6 mg·L<sup>–1</sup>) criteria most closely matched lake trout habitat use, had a similar seasonal trend as the tagged fish, suggested modest reductions (5% of total lake volume) in habitat during a warmer year, and performed best when the constraints of temperature and DO were most limiting. All data were collected in a small boreal shield lake (27 ha,<span> </span><i>z</i><sub>max</sub><span> </span>= 21 m) at the Experimental Lakes Area in northwestern Ontario, Canada, during two contrasting periods of thermal stratification (2003: warmer and longer; 2004: cooler and shorter), providing an assessment of observed and theoretical habitat volumes over current environmental extremes.</div>
application/pdf
10.1139/F09-129
en
Canadian Science Publishing
Performance of temperature and dissolved oxygen criteria to predict habitat use by lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush)
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